1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a fire escape device and more particularly a device which enables persons trapped in the interior of a building or other enclosure to safely descend from the building with the device including an elongated flexible member and a slide detachably mounted on the flexible member with the slide including a sling for supporting a person and means for manually adjusting the rate of descent along the flexible member.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many fatal injuries have resulted from persons being trapped in the interior of a building by a fire disposed between their location and a normal escape route provided in the building. This has been a particular problem in present-day high rise structures which usually are provided with only interior stairwells and elevator systems. Various devices have been provided for enabling such trapped individuals to escape by lowering themselves down the exterior wall of the building from a window opening or the like. My prior U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,507,763, issued Apr. 7, 1970, 3,765,507, issued Oct. 16, 1973 and 3,834,489, issued Sept. 10, 1974 and the other prior patents cited during prosecution of the applications which matured into these patents are representative of such devices. In many of the previous devices, the slide structure is assembled on the flexible member since the flexible member is threaded through the slide member thus necessitating that the person using the fire escape device put the sling on while positioned adjacent the flexible member. Thus, even though more than one slide member could be positioned on the flexible member, under near panic conditions which may exist, it sometimes occurred that a number of individuals adjacent the flexible member interfered with each other when trying to gain access to a sling since all of the slings would be located in an adjacent relation.